One of my favorite social commentators Chris Hedges has spoke against “Utopianism”. He says utopian ideologies end in barbarism. He says the main reason for that is the ugly irrational human impulses and emotions that undermine any human project. There sure have been many idealistic endeavors that have succumbed to these hard wired tendencies and ended up all fracked up!
Kinda hard to disagree.
This view implies that humans can never arrive at what progressives think of as justice and peace. This viewpoint, opinion certainly has been challenging for a utopian such as myself. I’ve always had a view of a more just society. It seems difficult to move towards a “better” situation if you don’t have an idea of what it looks like in mind.
What this view seems to imply is that humans cannot manage their affairs in a peaceful and just way. What’s difficult to believe about that is that there has been progressive change over history. Hedges doesn’t seem to account for that. It seems unlikely to me that he is advocating a blind random walk through a forest of social configurations that may or may not be better for humanity.
However, I do think that a forward march to progress is not guaranteed. it is very much provisional. We may or may not progress to a more just, humane and egalitarian society.
pepitothinking 